Tailspin: Rising prices force Winter Texans to cut back

SAN BENITO — When Bruce and Bonnie Edenfield retired, they dreamed of climbing into their RV to spend their golden years trekking across America.

"My goal was to travel full time," said Bruce Edenfield, 66, a financial consultant who retired from Wells Fargo Investments in 2004.

Before they pulled up and left their hometown of Bend, Ore., they budgeted $500 a month for gas and rental space where they'd park their new 36-foot Gulfstream RV.

Autumn lured them to Vermont and New Hampshire where they "watched the leaves change," he said.

By 2005, they were trading in their RV for a diesel-powered 40-foot Alfa motor home to journey from the Rocky Mountains in Colorado to Alaska.

A year later, they toured the East Coast from Florida to Virginia Beach.

But soaring fuel prices had eaten up their travel budget.

"We didn't realize the cost of fuel was going to go up so much," Bruce Edenfield said.

So they figured they'd cut down on their travel and buy a home.

After wintering in the Rio Grande Valley for three years, they settled into a park model at Fun-N-Sun RV Resort.

"As costs rose, we started thinking we'd spend more time in one place," Bruce Edenfield said. "We liked the Valley so much we decided to come here."

After they sold their motor home to buy a 31-foot Coachmen RV to try to cut fuel costs, they traded in their Honda SUV for a Toyota Prius, a hybrid that gets about 45 miles per gallon.

Soon, Bonnie Edenfield, 65, a retired insurance agent, took a job as the park's activities coordinator and her husband was working as a referee at high school basketball games. She didn't want to say exactly how much she made at her job, but he makes as much as $800 a month.

"It definitely supplements," she said.

Last summer, the couple traveled on country music superstar Dolly Parton's tab.

In June, Bruce Edenfield took a job selling tickets for $7.50 an hour at Dollywood, Parton's theme park in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee.

"It was enough to pay for our fuel here and back and defray the cost of rental space for our RV," Bonnie Edenfield said.

She took the job as activities coordinator when they returned home, after that trip.

"It was finances, of course," she said. "The cost of everything has gone up."

This year, rising costs and a sluggish economy forced them to change the way they live.

"I don't get pedicures as often," she said with a chuckle.

At home, they pushed the thermostat up from 69 to 73 degrees at night and from 76 to 78 during the day, Bruce Edenfield said.

"We don't go out to see a lot of movies, although we love movies," Bonnie Edenfield said. "We rent movies when we can.

"We're avid readers but we don't buy as many books at Barnes and Noble. We go to the used book store or to the public library."

Two months after Hurricane Dolly tore into town, shutters still seal their windows. Inside, curtains block the view of the tall palms that line the park's winding streets.

"It cuts down on some of the heat," Bonnie Edenfield said. "We keep things closed up because the cost of fuel is so high."

When they moved to the park, they dined out with friends about four times a week, Bruce Edenfield said. Now, they go out once or twice, he said.

"We try to cut back," Bonnie Edenfield said. "We have made some pretty drastic changes in our lives."